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A Tale Of Two Churches

First things first: Like every human being with a living soul, I abhor the violence that took place yesterday in Charleston, South Carolina.

While one can expect the Obama Justice Department’s to politicize this episode for all it’s worth (more later), in this case the hate crime investigation seems entirely warranted; the alleged shooter, who seems at first glance to be a fairly demented young man, gives off a lot of the surface signs of being motivated by some form of racial hatred or another, rather than mere insanity.

The alleged shooter, Mr. Roof, reportedly went to great lengths to avoid alarming his targets, apparently even participating in a Bible study for an hour before opening fire.

So the situation doesn’t compare, entirely, with the one in 2007, at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs; there, the shooter, A demented person motivated by hatred of Christianity barged into the service with guns blazing, killing one before being shot by a volunteer civilian security guard Jeanne Assam.

And yet it remains unalterably true that the best way to stop a mass shooting is to shoot back. One person with a legal, concealed firearm, putting up even token resistance, is almost invariably enough to stop a mass shooting before it becomes a mass shooting. Even Columbine, horrible as it was, was likely contained from being much worse by the intervention of an armed sheriffs deputy working school security; this blog has covered other episodes of mass shootings derailed by armed citizens.

But the church in Charleston? It was a gun free zone. This, it has in common with pretty much every mass shooting location in recent history.

This past spring, I interviewed a couple of church security experts on the show. They pointed to the sheer number of attacks on churches lately – by no means all lethal, but still scary stuff if you’re paying attention (and I’ll be interviewing another tomorrow on the show). And yet all over the Twin Cities, you see churches posting themselves with cutesy signs; “Blessed are the Peacemakers; guns are not permitted” (not an endorsement of Colt single action .45’s, by the way).

How many more people of faith have to be slaughtered before the stupid-pious get the picture?

26 thoughts on “A Tale Of Two Churches”

I sincerely hope leftists will, at last, see the costs their politics of racial and ethnic division levies on our country. Their message of envy and hate perpetuate suffering and fuel the minds’ dark corners in people already on the fringe.

Jeanne Assam’s story is not a particularly happy one. After she shot the attacker she was hailed as a hero – and became a target of the media which dug up her past, including being fired by the Minneapolis Police Department and other issues she’d had. Hers was a hard and troubled life before coming to New Life, and was beginning to find some peace and meaning. The attention was focused on her past rather than her presence of mind in the moment, and she was subject to a lot of MSM clucking and eye-rolling, and the fact that it was New Life didn’t help the portrayal.

An interesting fact is that both she and the shooter had reasons in their life to hate Christianity; her reasons could arguably have been even greater, yet one chose to shoot up innocent people and the other chose to defend them.

Gun free zones have fuck all to do with shootings, mass shootings or individual shootings. There is zero evidence that anyone takes advantage of gun free zones to commit any kind of shooting, small or mass. It does not appear to EVER figure in such calculations.

Keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have guns in the first place is the best way to prevent shootings, not more guns. Having more guns and more shootings has shown no benefit in stopping any kind of crime on a statistically significant basis.

Less tolerance for systemic right wing racism would be helpful as well.

There is zero evidence that people carrying guns, OTHER than law enforcement does shit to address events like the shooting in South Carolina. In point of fact there is MINIMAL defensive gun use in contrast to gun violence in this country.

EVERY gun starts out as a legal gun; we do too damned little to regulate who subsequently gets those guns — including people like this shooter who was not allowed under the law to buy new guns while he had pending felonies, but was allowed to keep the guns he already had.

Your point fails.

Totally changing the subject, I had dropped by originally to wish you a very happy Father’s Day this weekend (and as well to your readers who are dads, both biological but also those who have filled that role).

Whatever differences over politics we might have doesn’t change being friends. Being a dad has always been deeply important to you, and I wanted to salute that. Good for you, and I hope Will, Bun and Zam spoil you rotten and make a significant fuss over you, because you deserve it.

Cheers to you, Mitch on Sunday! And happy Juneteenth day, today, the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Nutcase shoots people, Lefties jump up shouting and I get fear-mongering fundraising email from gun rights organizations. I hate you all.

This is one instance when I think free speech should be restricted, perhaps not by the government but certainly by common consent arising out of ordinary decency: nobody should say ANYTHING about the incident until the dead have been buried. That’s what, three days? Five? A week? Everybody just step back and STFU to give grieving families a chance to get settled down and give scrambling cops time to sort out the facts.

To be fair, not ALL attempted mass shootings are in gun free zones. The attack on the Litle Rock police station last week, and the would-be assault on the Mohammad cartoon contest were not gun-free zones – and it didn’t turn out well for the attackers. It’s back to schools, churches and shopping malls,I guess.

The reason Roof chose the church is unclear at this time. He could have found a gathering of blacks somewhere else. Kind of weird, the people he shot were too old to intermarry and have kids, if that was his hang-up. Maybe it was an anti-christian hate crime?

The reason Roof chose the church is unclear at this time. He could have found a gathering of blacks somewhere else. Kind of weird, the people he shot were too old to intermarry and have kids, if that was his hang-up. Maybe it was an anti-christian hate crime?

After a mass shooting, the statists out there bring up all kinds of “remedies.” The first question to ask yourself is if the proposal being made would have actually helped in this situation.
For example, Obama has basically been filling the air with poorly thought out soundbites. Today it was blather about avoiding a background check by buying a handgun at a gun show. Roof did not buy his weapon at a gun show. He passed the background check.
So would a check of mental records prevented the Charleston tragedy? No?
Then stop wasting time with fantasies.

The link doesn’t provice much to talk about, Emery. Even right-wing kooks like me agree the dangerously insane shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns. Question 11(f) on Form 4473 (the form you fill out at the gun shop counter) specifically asks if you’ve been committed to a mental institution, which matches federal law; but even the gun control people cited in the linked article say it won’t solve the problem and the mental health advocates pointed out it’s too broad a brush, a point made by Tyler v. Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Department last year (6th Dist. Ct. of App., 13-1876). North Dakota linking records of involuntary commitments is a good thing but not a big deal – just makes one tiny state’s records easier to search for compliance with existing law.

What I have not heard, Emery, is any person, pro or anti-gun, say what law could have kept a gun out of Roof’s hands. He was an adult with no felony convictions, no convictions for violent crime, and he was not insane. If it is unhelpful to say that church goers should be armed (and I think that it is), it is equally unhelpful to talk about banning gun ownership for adults. You would think that the president would have better ideas than random blog commenters.

I agree with your point about gun violence affecting attitudes among the middle class. New polling data shows people are more interested in owning firearms for self-defense; most states are shall-issue or open-carry; the courts are beginning to treat the Second Amendment as a Fundamental Right meaning it should be as well-protected from government regulation as Freedom of Speech or Religion or Abortion. Yes, Emery, attitudes are changing for the better every day.

Statistically, most Americans don’t face a significant threat from crime and/or gun violence. As such, gun control will remain a familial issue, because it is highly visible, and because for most Americans, a lack of stronger gun control has very little impact on their safety and security.

” . . . lack of stronger gun control . . . .” It sounds as if you’re implying there is a form of gun control that would provide most Americans with greater safety and security. I’m interested in hearing about that; care to elaborate?